Hobby Roundup

 

I’ve been pretty quiet on the blog front for the last few months but this is just because I’ve been too busy doing a whole range of stuff in the hobby. I haven’t been able to build or paint much but boy have I been busy!

Wargames Shows

I’ve taken the Imjin board to Phalanx in St Helens, the Joy of Six in Sheffield, Claymore up in Edinburgh and the Other Partizan.

At Phalanx I continued the Imjin battle from Partizan refighting the second night and daytime action with a number of different gamers. I was really pleased to receive the award for best in show. Phalanx is the first show I ever exhibited at almost 30 years ago so it was good to go back to it.

Yours truly at Phalanx

At the Joy of Six I refought the last day of the Imjin battle but ran out of time to complete the game with just a few turns remaining. The show was absolutely fantastic with some amazing tables and games put on. I got to meet Per Broden and the guys from Little Wars TV. Peter Berry as always put on a great day.

It was my first time up at Claymore in Edinburgh and was really grateful for the chance to go up after a last minute change of plans meant I had the weekend free. The guys at Southeast Scotland Wargames Club generously allowed me to attend. I was then able to restart the battle on the first night and begin another play through. 

The refight continued through the second night of the battle at the Other Partizan in early October with the players choosing to push on with the relief column. All is nicely set up for the refight of the last night at Fiasco in Leeds on Sunday 30th October.

I’m booked in for Warfare at Farnborough in mid November, may be at Recon in Pudsey in December. I’ll be at Vapnartak in February and Hammerhead in March. I will take the board on its last outing to Salute in April.

Magazine Articles

I have fulfilled a bit of a personal ambition by having a couple of articles published. The people at Wargames Illustrated we’re kind enough to publish two articles about the Imjin board with one detailing the build and the other talking about the game design and approach.

The first article in issue 416 covered the background on the build whilst the second part in issue 417 covered the scenario, rule adjustments and other elements supporting running a game on the board.

Podcast

I was very kindly invited onto the excellent Hobby Support Group podcast to talk about the Imjin board. Tom, the host, and I had quite an in depth chat about the battle and the Korean War. I’m listening to all their back catalogue of episodes and it’s now my go to wargames podcast. They also have an active Facebook presence so please add it to your playlists.

Sadly Sean Clark of the God’s Own Scale podcast has decided to call it a day due to health reasons. His podcast remains the gold standard for wargames podcasts. His friendly, relaxed interview style brought out the best in guests. Appearing on it is one of my hobby highlights. Thanks to Sean for all of his work on the podcast and supporting the hobby in general.

Arnhem Wargames weekend

I was able to travel to Arnhem to take part in a small wargames weekend run by Arnhem author Chris Brown and his Special Projects In Twenty-eight mm (SPIT for short). We were located in a hotel by the Rhine about a mile from Arnhem bridge and it took place on the anniversary weekend. During the day I was able to visit the Oosterbeek museums, the bridge, catch several re-enactments and watch the parachute drop. 

In the evenings we wargamed! Whilst most of the games were larger scale bolt action or rapid fire games I took along my Arnhem board and my 6mm figures. I played in most of the games and had a tremendous time. Big thanks to Chris and his wife Pat for organising and running the event nd to all the other attendees for being such great sports, particularly those who dropped down the scales to give my game a go!

Save Gordon

Dan Hodgson of Reveille painting studio invited David and I down to his fabulous War Room to play a first run through of his amazing Khartoum game. Using hundreds of 6mm figures, dozens of beautiful buildings, his amazing hexon tile collection and numerous ships and boats Dan has recreated the famous siege. Dave and I were his test guinea pigs and over an amazing weekend we were able to have two run throughs allowing us to swap roles on the second day. We both had an absolute blast. Dan and his partner Julia were very gracious hosts and we got to meet his new dogs into the bargain.

Dan Hodgson on the left and David Wasilewski with Dan’s fabulous table

Dan is perfecting the set up and will be running it at Hammerhead in March. I can thoroughly recommend his game!

Dedicated Hobby Space

I have been working away over the last few months creating some space that I can pretty much dedicate as a modelling and wargaming space. I have managed to convert a room into a workshop and am in the final stages of decorating it. By mid November it should be complete. 

I’ve built a number of workbenches which can double as wargames tables and intend to spend the next few months kitting it out and organising it. Then I will be free to start my next major project.

Gaming 

My main focus other the last few months has been on the Great War. David Wasilewski and I have begun work on creating a Great War version of the All Hell Let Loose rules. I have been reading voraciously, watching the excellent lectures by the Western Front Association and working through all different kinds of rules mechanisms. We feel we are making pretty good progress although these things always progress at glacial speeds. Most of the core concepts and mechanics have been created so now it’s a matter of stress testing them. I’ll post much more about this next year.

So that’s it for my update, hopefully I’ll be back to a more regular posting schedule shortly.

Keep the dice rolling!

Charles the Modeller 

Imjin at Partizan

Partizan at the Newark Showground was the first wargame show I was able to take my River Imjin board to. It’s a show I am pretty familiar with as it’s the same location for Hammerhead and the Other Partizan. The building used is a large and airy hall with plenty of natural and artificial light. It’s very professionally run by the Newark Irregulars who do an outstanding job. It’s also just over two hours drive for me so it was up very early to be there to set up.

I brought my two boys with me partly for company, partly to get them into the hobby and partly to act as assistants with the game. A quick stop at MacDonalds half a mile from the show set us up for the day. The kids were brilliant in helping carry all the gear and boards into the show and helping me set it all up. About 9:30 I was all set up and took the opportunity to wander the hall to look at all the other games and traders as I don’t usually have any time when running a game.

There were some absolutely fantastic games at the show. In particular I loved the small scale Medway Anglo-Dutch naval board for a superb recreation of the Dutch raid. The Cold War Commanders had a fabulous river crossing game allowing players to attempt a 1985 river crossing in a Cold War gone hot game. It was another 6mm game and had some amazing scenery including a very long bridge.

I was able to say hi to some people and met Leon from Adler for the first time. I’ve been buying his figures for 30 years so it was something of a personal pilgrimage.

At 10am the doors opened and people began flooding in. Before long I was chatting to a man whose father had fought at Imjin. It was emotional for us both.

It was not long before I persuaded somebody to give the game a go and the dice were rolling as British artillery took an appalling toll on Chinese troops crossing the Imjin. There then followed more and more players, some staying for a few turns, others for several hours as the Chinese surged forward. The game stayed on track and progressed very quickly. I had hoped to get through 12 turns - essentially 24 hours of game time but we were able to complete 19 turns despite no-one ever having played the rules before. I had a great time and I think all my players did too.

I was alert enough to spot Mel Bose, the Terrain Tutor, as he explored the show and grabbed the chance to say hello and get a photo! He made some very kind comments about my board on his fantastic Partizan show YouTube video.

To cap and outstanding day I was absolutely delighted to be given the award for best participation game by the judges including the editor of Wargames, Soldiers and Strategy. It’s going to take pride of place on my modelling desk and will be a reminder of a fantastic day at Partizan.

I will be taking the game to the following shows over the next year or so. Please pop over and say hello and maybe give the game a go.

Phalanx in St Helens. 18th June

Joy of Six in Sheffield. 3rd July 

The Other Partizan in Newark     10th October 

Fiasco in Leeds 27th October 

Warfare in Reading 12th and 13th November 

Keep the dice rolling!

Charles the Modeller 

Imjin River - the figures, vehicles and aircraft

 

Chinese troops ford the River Imjin 

Having completed the build of the Imjin model I switched into figure painting mode and have feverishly been painting away. I have now completed the painting of all the elements I need for the full refight.

For the Chinese I have used Adler’s WW2 6mm Russian range, predominantly S4 Soviet infantry in winter jacket and SS11 Soviet infantry winter jacket LMG. These troops all wear the quilted suit and the trapper style hat and are armed with a mix of rifles and burp SMGs. I’ve painted them in a mustardy yellow and I think they are perfect for this purpose.

The mortar and HMG teams are regular soviet figures as Adler doesn’t do a winter range. They still look the part though!

Chinese mortar team centre foreground 

I’ve had to paint a whole host of Chinese for the game. However the Chinese have so many troops that each stand gets recycled 3 or 4 times across the 3 days and 4 nights of the battle!

130 stands of Chinese, or what the Glosters have to go through each day!

For the Glosters I went with Adler’s WW2 6mm B4 British Royal Marines and BS4A Marine Bren Teams. I was hoping some of these figures would be depicted with the wool comforter hat but alas this was not to be. However they did all come with berets so I could paint the famous Black Gloster beret. I placed the Glosters in trenches using AKs light earth basing texture. Finally I used a different basing scheme to allow for easy visual differentiation between the Glosters and Chinese. 

Chinese on the left and bottom on dull green bases, Glosters on the upper right on brighter green bases.

Glosters based individually for a mini game segment of the battle

Again mortar, HMG and gun crews are from a mixture of the 8th Army and regular British army codes.

The soldiers of the Filipino 10th Infantry Combat Team are Adler WW2 US infantry.

The vehicles are by GHQ and are 1:285 scale. Again some proxies are required.

Firstly we have a Centurion Mk5 masquerading as a Centurion Mk3.

Next are some T16 universal carriers depicting the Oxford universal carrier.

The 25pdr guns of 45 Regt RA are actually 25pdr guns.

The M24 Chaffee is also an actual Chaffee.

And lastly the aircraft. Here I have used 1:600 aircraft from Tumbling Dice.

Firstly the F80 Shooting Stars.

The L4 Stinson Sentinel.

A single C119 Flying Boxcar

And finishing everything off are a couple of OH13 Sioux helicopters from Oddzial Osmy.

Next time I hope to be able to start presenting some AARs from the refight. If you want to look at or even game on this board it will be at Partizan in Newark on the 22nd May, Phalanx in St Helen’s on th 18th June and at the Joy of Six on the 3rd July.

Until then keep your dice rolling!

Charles the Modeller 

Imjin River board - Complete!

This week I was able to commandeer the dining room and with a few hours work I was able to finish my River Imjin Korean War board. I had been able to complete almost everything on the individual boards but I just needed all 3 of them together the make sure some roads across joins were married up properly, and a village or two required adding. I have covered the details of the build in earlier posts of the blog and won’t talk about that here.

I am really pleased with the result. I have applied to show the board at the Joy of Six in July and intend to run it as a participation game. I’m on with painting the miniatures already and I will post on them shortly.

Today’s post though is just going to be pictures of the board.

Gloster Crossing looking south with Gloster Hill in the centre back

The flat expanse Lt. Guy Temple and his patrol escaped across after engaging the initial Chinese attempts to cross the Imjin

The hills in the centre of the photo were held by the Glosters on the first night of the battle. A co on the right on hill 148, D co in the centre on hill 182 and B on the left on hill 144.

Gloster Hill, Hill 235 where the Glosters fought their last stand. 

Gloster Hill looking west from Kamaksan. Seolma-ri, a small village, can be seen in the mid left of the picture.

The slopes of Kamaksan can be seen behind of Gloster Hill looking east.

Route 5Y, or 5 Yankee heading south through Choksong and passing below and then to the east of Gloster Hill. This was a strategic route to Seoul. The Glosters prevented this route being used by the Chinese for 3 crucial days.

Route 5Y then heads south down a long narrow valley. The UN tried to push reinforcements down this route. 

I am planning a pre show game and hope to be able to share an AAR. With the way the dates have fallen I hope to be fighting the battle on the weekend of the 23rd and 24th April, which by a curious coincidence is the 71st anniversary the battle.

Keep the dice rolling!

Charles the Modeller